This invention relates generally to apparatus for automatically stripping insulation from wires and applying contact terminals to the bared end regions thereof and, more particularly, to automatic apparatus wherein individual wires of a plurality of wires are fed successively to spaced stripping and terminating stations at which the wires are respectively stripped of insulation and terminated by electrical contacts in a continuous manner.
Machines are known in the electrical industry wherein contact terminals are crimped onto the ends of wires which have been previously stripped of insulation. Such machines generally include apparatus by which terminals in strip form are fed and reciprocating crimping tools, i.e., a crimping die which is reciprocated by a press towards and away from an anvil so that an operator locates each wire, one at a time, between the die and anvil and actuates the press to cause a contact terminal to be crimped onto the located wire.
However, due to the time required for feeding the wires by hand to the crimping location, the capacity of such machines is severly limited.
There have been several previous attempts to provide automatic apparatus whereby the wires to be terminated are automatically fed to the crimping location. For example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,310,301; 3,858,292; and 3,245,135. Thus, it is known to provide feed means for the wires in the form of a feed drum or endless conveyor chain which feed the individual wires successively to a terminating station where electrical contacts are applied thereto. Although such apparatus provides improved operation relative to the manual apparatus described above, the same are not entirely satisfactory in that the wires must be prepared prior to being associated with the feed means, i.e., an end region on each wire must be stripped of insulation prior to being located at the terminating station. Such preparation of course involves additional time consuming operations.
Recently, attempts have been made to provide apparatus wherein the wires are fed to operating stations where they are stripped of insulation and then terminated by electrical contacts and in this connection reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,566. However, such apparatus has not proven satisfactory in that such apparatus is extremely complex and expensive in manufacture so as to limit their availability for economic reasons. Further, such apparatus tend to be bulky and therefore require an undue amount of space in the factory.
Still further, presently proposed machines which accomplish a plurality of operations on wires as they are successively fed therethrough are disadvantageous in that various operations which, of course, must be precisely synchronized with each other, are accomplished utilizing independent drive apparatus so that it often occurs that the various operations are not in timed relation requiring the machine to be shut down for repair. Further, changes in speed in the wire feed necessarily require corresponding modifications to be made in the speed of operation of the other components of the machine in order to maintain the various operations in the precise synchronized timed relation. For example, currently available apparatus usually utilize pneumatic or solenoid drives which are independently driven with respect to the wire feed so that changes in the feed rate require corresponding changes to be made in the pneumatic or solenoid apparatus.